Waking Up
by ArizonaLovegood
Summary: Fallon Z. Everdeen lives a mediocre life, with parents who are, at times, mentally unstable. She realizes her parents left a much bigger legacy than they let on, and she is forced to face the life her parents did.
1. Box Never Meant to be Seen

My footsteps echoed through the empty alleys of Town 12, the only other sound being the raindrops pattering against the pavement and the bricks. The sound was crisp, and comforting; I heard the same sounds every single day, sometimes with pouring rain, but seldom with sunny, clear skies. The gray light had yet to become bright, and the dim light that had boldly dared to enter the night's turf spilled onto surfaces, weaving through shadow and darkness.

I myself was not out of place, in this dark world with dim, muted color. I was wearing loose sweat pants, a tight green shirt, and a black jacket, left unzipped. My hands were shoved deep into my pockets, and accompanied by several miscellaneous objects; a sheathed knife, a small portion of gauze, and a small cloth protecting a few cookies.

I couldn't even deny, I had a bit of a sweet tooth; especially in the cold months, fresh, warm food of any kind was soothing. It was descending into winter, but right now it was fall. You wouldn't tell the difference, since most of the trees don't really lose their leaves for any season. They don't even have leaves, they're pine trees.

They have pines. And pinecones. And pine needles. What genius comes up with this stuff?

I veered down another alley, taking a sideways, diagonal route. The scenery of dreary shop fronts with unenthusiastic splashes of color fell behind me, and it was just the stone walls of the two buildings on either side of me, neither of which I had bothered to learn the name of, despite my passing them each day.

I stepped out of the alley on the next street, which was, besides the names and types of stores, an exact mimic of the last street. As well as the next street. The monotony of everything got a little boring – not boring, _unexciting_. Gotta think more before I…think. It's like talking to yourself, but in your head. So no one really knows how crazy you are. I never fit in enough thinking before talking, so I had to practice in my head. And choose words carefully.

So I wouldn't my brother stupid, I would call him disobliging and beleaguering. He wouldn't know what those meant, anyway, he was seven years younger than I was. Seven. Fourteen vs. Seven. He was half my age, exactly.

After countless absent footsteps, I arrived at the stone wall, an obstruction that separated the forest and beyond from the town. On it was a beat-up, old metal sign that read, "DO NOT PASS. DANGER. WILD ANIMALS." I couldn't really take it seriously, because a few weeks back someone had written something obscene and profane by it, and it always made me chuckle.

I reached up and grasped the top edge of the wall, climbing up the smooth surface with my sneakers and finally climbing onto the top of it, swinging myself over and landing nimbly on the ground. I reached into my pocket and drew my knife, pulling off the hand-sewn case for it, filled with cotton and made of tough fabric on the inside, so the knife wouldn't cut through. I jammed the sheath back into my pocket and proceeded, keeping it ahead of me in case I saw something.

I first went to check my traps; I had only two set, at the time. The first was just a short distance from the wall, and I waded through the waist-high plants, most of which were just thorny and dead.

They were seasonal.

I finally arrived at the tree from which the trap was hung – I had marked it with my knife, X marks the spot (Technically, jumbled scribbles and hanging, sap-coated bark marked the spot in that case, but I digress) – and knelt beside it. Hanging low above the ground was a rabbit, hanging by its little not-quite-as-lucky-as-it-had-hoped rabbit's foot. I sawed through the rope easily, and the rabbit dropped. I held it by the rope, the rabbit hanging limply, and went over to my other trap.

If this one was full, I wouldn't even have to hunt. I silently hoped it would have something else in it, and finally, as I reached the next graffiti-ed tree, checked to see if my prayers were answered.

A fox was lying, deflated and glassy-eyed, its neck imprisoned under a nasty set of old, rusted spikes.

That had to be a day-ruiner.

I grinned, and then whooped. We weren't the richest, and food got scarce after every frost, but _both_ the traps had been filled. I opened the jaws of the trap, taking the length of rope I left tucked under the trap – in case I did get lucky – and tying it around the fox's neck, grabbing both the ropes and pacing back toward the town.

I pulled open my pocket and dropped the knife into its holster, gripping the two ropes of animal tightly as I scaled the wall again, landing hard on the other side.

* * *

The return home was uneventful, and I didn't even need to consider the path because of how many times I had taken it. My feet led me there across the rain-slicked cement efficiently, and I was content to be out of the rain and back under a roof.

Our home was small. It was where my mother's home had been originally, just built over the ashes. Our town was also referred to as phoenix or the phoenix, because we rose out of the ashes of District 12 and became Town 12.

While being under a roof was comforting, it was sort of disturbing to know what I was over. My mom had sometimes let slip words of the ash running through her fingers, the skulls of people she had known, the remnants of things she had owned all in crumbles and ruin. But she only told things like that when she had her attacks, as we called them; just sort of traumatic flashbacks of her mysterious but seemingly boring life before us.

My father was different, however. He would just remain cold and stony, and if you asked him a question he wouldn't respond. Sometimes he would feel his wedding ring in his fingers, or wring out his hands. Sometimes, he reminded me of an Autistic child; we had to study them for a while, they were just disconnected from the world.

My parents were both inexplicably insane.

No one else was awake, however; this was my time. I sort of liked the deserted feel of early dawn, around four or five in the morning, as the huge clock in the center of town read. It was peaceful, and the stress and business of reality had yet to press upon me, as if it choked me and slowly killed me each passing day.

I glanced over at my room, thinking of the town clock. I remember that when I was young, my mother gave me the most beautiful, elegant pocketwatch, made in gold with a picture of a mockingjay, the dwindling species that was a cross between several different birds. I had kept it, but I couldn't remember where.

I could faintly remember it being under a cabinet. I looked at the cabinet in the corner, crouching down and peeking underneath. There was a wooden chest, dull and unadorned. I pulled it out, and with it came a puff of dust. I choked on it and silently fought a cough, so as not to wake anyone. I held my breath and dusted off the top, unlatching the front and opening it.

Inside were several sets old tapes, those coated in a film of dust as well. They were divided into roughly two halves, with around four tapes on each side. I pulled one out and observed it; there was no label, nothing implicating what it showed.

I placed it back in the chest, glancing around. Something about this chest felt private, as if I weren't supposed to be looking at it. The feeling only intensified the moment, making it more interesting.

I felt a lurking feeling that it would be disappointing. What if I had found just old wedding tapes? Or worse, tapes of us being born?

I half considered shoving it back in and never looking at the box again, but the lure of the curiosity it posed was too strong.

I had enough time before anyone woke up to at least find out what it was.

* * *

**I'll have more stuff up soon. Review if you like it, or if you don't. I know, I know. This chapter was sort of insanely boring – I felt like I had to have some sort of introduction before I just threw you into the action, don't you think? If you can think, if this boring chapter hasn't turned your brain to mush. Don't worry, it will get better, I promise.**


	2. The Chosen Tribute

"No, no, no," I whispered to myself, violently prodding the 'Eject' key on the tape player that was hooked to the television.

It was nothing fancy; a 9 by 14 inch screened television, with slightly green-tainted coloring, fuzzy around the edges but still clearly visible. The tape in the box wasn't quite meshing smoothly with the television; at least, not as smoothly as I'd hoped. It spat the tape out, and I grabbed it, yanking it from the slot it had been placed in and facing it towards me.

I blew into the open gaps in the tape, and a small hurricane of dust whirled out. I blew it once more, to let up the dust that was left on the tape, before returning it to its slot.

After several moments, it accepted my offering and sucked it in, growling at first. That was an improvement from the first few times, when it hadn't made any signal to recognizing the tape or not. When a while of that had passed, it began to settle down from a growl to a low purr, sounding satisfied. I held my breath, waiting to see if it would take-

"Yes," I breathed, grinning and leaning back into the couch as I watched the screen burst into life. The black exploded with vibrant colors, a field of red and – the flag of Panem. The anthem began to play, but after a few recognizable notes, it merged into a familiar news station jingle.

The flag became small and was secluded in the corner of the screen, revealing a newsperson with impossibly perfect hair (hair that was rainbow colored, to boot) and a winning smile on their face, which was clearly and hideously operated on. The side was laced with swirling, arcing tattoos that plastered across the side of his face, with sparkles atop it. His eyes were rimmed with gold, as were his lips. He was wearing a suit with a rose in the pocket and a pattern like the one across the side of his face embroidered on the side of the suit. The suit seemed too plain, ridiculously so; as if you saw a clown wearing a suit.

"_Welcome back, Panem! I'm Xavien Tarrey, your off-scene host for the 74__th__ annual Hunger Games here at Kia Channel 3 News, your leading station in the Games!_" everything he said was plastic, and he somehow sounded completely overjoyed. His accent made him hard to take seriously, as well; some adults still had traces of it, and I recognized it as the capitol accent. "_If you've just tuned in, here's the status: we now know all the tributes for each district, the two most recent being from District 11,the sweet little Rue for the female and Thresh as the male tribute, an ox by the look of it! And now, here it is: the final tributes from District 12, the center of coal mining!_"

District 12 – which was now Town 12. My mother had lived here for her whole life…she had to be out when it was burnt down, maybe she was…out at a protest. She had been an activist in the uprising against the Capitol; maybe this was a tape about her protest! A whole set of tapes about her protesting and…whatever else she did. I couldn't picture my mother, on the brink of sanity, fighting in a war. No, she would be more with…protesting. Maybe speaking, or just holding up a sign. I don't know if she would interrupt the choosing of a tribute, though.

The picture of the flag in the corner was swapped with a picture of a wide plaza in a town, which was fairly drab and unadorned; even the golden sunlight spilling across it could not hide that. There was a sort of misery that hung over the place, like –

The coal. You could tell by people's expressions that it was a coal-mining place, the way the grime was set into their faces and the whole place. It still was mainly a mining place, but lots of people were trying to start new things, like their own shop or learning a trade of some sort, to get out of the dreaded mines.

Another woman started speaking. She seemed…perky, excited, bubbly, overjoyed. It was almost annoying; and since I knew what the Hunger Games were, her whole mannerisms seemed off, as if they belonged elsewhere. Like maybe a party, or…anything but this funeral.

It began with a man – probably the leader of 12, maybe the president or mayor or whatever he was to it – reciting a speech that obviously didn't even hold his own attention. It was pretty much just a list of disasters and tragedies and natural disasters to get the mood going; every once in a while, the man stopped describing the death toll of the war to throw in a few comments that almost made it a story, and ended it grandly with, "_And when the smoke cleared, out rose the nation of Panem, from the depths of the broken North America. The people were united, as twelve districts – who were ruled by a fair and valiant capitol, shining and magnificent."_

And then he began to tell more of the Hunger Games, the rules and the ideals and what it showed. "It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," he read, almost emotionlessly. "_Even our district has had several winners. Maysilee Donner, my own sister-in-law, was a tribute in the 50__th__ annual Hunger Games, also a Quarter Quell. Haymitch Abernathy, who is with us now, won the 50__th__ annual Hunger Games._"

He paused, and from behind him, Haymitch rose. I recognized him; he was our neighbor, and had an unusually nice house, as we did. They were all nice, on our row; I had asked why, and my mother had always said it was because she and him had been big protesters – him, just because he had participated in the Hunger Games a long time ago, and won with his wit – and they had been rewarded with secure, nice homes.

Red-faced and drunk, Haymitch shamelessly staggered up to the front, knocking over the microphone stand and almost falling off the stage. He yelled a few garbled words, then laughed, slurring it all together into one sound. He whirled around, and gave the bubbly blond host a huge hug. She resisted, putting her arms up and looking at him with excessive disdain, but he squeezed her and picked her up, looking happy. With a hiccup and a belch, he dropped her and slumped back into his seat, looking sort of confused but also rather pleased with himself.

The woman – Effie, I recalled from my mother's stories, Effie Twinkle or Tinker or something silly like that – went up to the front again, brushing herself off, rebounding quickly from her momentary horror.

"_Happy Hunger Games!_" she trilled, smiling and replacing her fake hair on the correct way. I snicker, just because of how ridiculous she is in her costume, with the pink hair as well. "_May the odds ever be in your favor! Let's start with selecting our lucky tribute, hm? Ladies first!_"

She half-skipped over to the huge glass bowl, with thousands of tiny little slips swirling around inside. She stuck her hand in and flailed it around for a moment before drawing it from the clear fishbowl. She opens it up and looks it over, then clearly reads, "_Primrose Everdeen!_"

Everdeen? It wasn't Katniss Everdeen – who was Primrose? My mom had never told us about a sister, maybe it was a cousin or something. The audience began to speak in low voices among themselves, muttering and grumbling about something.

Then, I figured it out. A small, twelve-year-old girl – she looked too young even to be available for the games, let alone in them – waddled out, stiff-legged and tense. Her dress was obviously worn, a hand-me-down that was probably used solely for the purpose of that day. Her eyes seemed to be glistening with tears.

She doesn't quite look like my mother, either, with light blond hair and bouncy curls. Maybe Everdeen was a more common name, or they weren't closely related. But why wouldn't my mom have never told me her relative had gone through the Hunger Games? It was all very baffling. Maybe she had never made it there, or gotten hurt in training or something. But then, why would it take up a whole box full of tapes? Maybe there were tapes of other things in the set, but I wasn't sure.

Then, a teenager in the crowd of kids and teens roped off for being possible tributes on the side broke from the crowd, pushing their way out. It was a girl, with dark hair that was spiked all around, with a braid hanging down her back.

"_Prim!_" she screeched in agony. "_Prim!_"

The shot zoomed in on her face, and the facial features immediately hit me as being recognizable.

Is this Katniss Everdeen, relative or sister or otherwise to Primrose – Prim – Everdeen? She swept the girl behind her with her arm, yelling shakily, "_I volunteer…I volunteer as tribute!_"

Katniss – thinking of this young teenager as 'mom' was just a bit too weird – began to step forward. Her sister Prim was hanging on to her feet, bawling, "_No, Katniss, no! You can't go, please!_"

A boy picked her up, looking about the same age as Katniss, and pulled her back into the roped-in area, kicking and screaming.

"_Lovely!_" Effie Trickle squeals, as if it were just a dramatic television show or something, entertainment. "_But I believe there's a matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if no one comes forth, we…um…_" Her voice faded off, confused and unsure of what to say.

"_What does it matter?_" a man groans, exasperated. The cameras, hungry for the newest piece of action, quickly panned over, and it turned out to be the man who had been speaking before. The mayor. "_What does it matter? Let her come forward._"

I sat, stunned. What was going on? Was she the new tribute? Katniss walked up to the stage, seeming half-petrified, half-contained. Effie Ticket still seemed delighted to have all this excitement, as pleased and pleasantly surprised as if her friends had thrown her a surprise party. It was sick.

It cut to a set of commercials, and I blinked, paralyzed. Everything about my current life seemed mediocre, compared to what I had just seen – the world I had just entered. I realized I was shaking, ever so slightly.

My mother had been a tribute in the 74th annual Hunger Games.

* * *

**Sorry it was so long. I know, I know…it's not quite entertaining yet, at least not as much as it will be when I get out of all this introduction and other stuff I just have to get over with. Yes, I'm still including this as, like, setting the scene for the rest of the story. Review, my few but important blessed readers, and I hope you enjoyed. I will try to get more out soon, sorry again for the extensive lengthiness of this chapter.**

**Also: I forgot to include my disclaimer in the last chapter, I hope the Disclaimer Police don't get me. I DO NOT own the Hunger Games trilogy - not to the world, anyways...just in my own mind... :D**


	3. Interrogation and the Likes

**Disclaimer: If I were Suzanne Collins, I…well, first, I would make Katniss a heck of a lot more thankful for having two boys fall head over heels for her! But I'm not…so…well, that's why the books turned out the way they did :)**

**Warning: May contain spoilers for any of the three books in the Hunger Games Trilogy.**

I was sitting there, feeling light-headed and sort of dream-like, the sort of pinch-me-this-can't-be-real feeling, when my father walked in. I should have heard his footsteps as he walked in to enter the room, but I was too distracted by the video. Not distracted…rattled. The video had shaken me, and I was in bad shape.

My face was clammy with a light sheen of sweat. It might have been from coming back inside, after being out in the cold; or maybe that had just prompted it, or maybe the two were unrelated completely. My hand was always a good signal of how I was doing. On a good day, I could keep it steady enough. But right now, it was rocking back and forth like a metronome, shaking so hard that even slow breathing couldn't rest it. My face was pallid, and my eyes were almost glazed over, like this video – the window into the past – had started to suck me in, and I sat, like an empty shell; soulless.

But no. I still had a soul, thankfully. And, even more thankfully, I still had peripheral vision. I caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye and glanced over, seeing my dad shuffling in, head down, in his tattered night robe.

I assaulted the 'EJECT' button violently, doing it several times in rapid succession, to make sure it got the message: _Spit out the freaking video! Now!_

The tape sluggishly rolled out of the drive, and I jerked it out. It flew out of my hands and slid across the floor, and I swore under my breath.

It was one of those funny coincidences right then. The television had been making angry little dysfunctional groans, but at the exact moment I swore, it stopped. So really, I hadn't said it under my breath, I had said it at a normal, casual volume.

Funny.

"Whoa, watch the mouth, there, Fal," my father said, his voice still sounding contained, or congested; like the sleep and lack of use for however many hours had caused his vocal chords to shrivel up and die a little. "What's going on?"

"Um" – I jammed the tape into its slot in the box, then stood up, kicking it under the row of shelves, where it had originally come from – "Nothing. TV's broke."

Just as he started to look unsure and opened his mouth to say something, I interjected, "Fixed it. I mean, it wasn't broken, it was just acting up. Like it always does."

He turned his head sideways, his eyes narrowing. He looked sort of suspicious, but it was more or less a playful expression. Then it was replaced by worry, and he added, "You alright? You look sort of pale—"

"Um, sick."

Boy, I just had an answer for everything!

"You want some medicine, or something…?"

"No, um…yeah. No."

"Yeah? Or no? We've got some stuff in the cabinet, if you want—"

"No!" I cut in, a little too quickly. "It's…um…like…a girl thing."

_He won't touch that, no way_, I thought smugly.

"Oh." My father looked down for a moment, and then he added, "Are you starting your period?"

_I STAND CORRECTED! _screamed the other half of my conscience, or whatever that little voice was

He looked like he was going to say more, but I cut in quickly. "God, dad, I don't ever want to hear you say that!" I looked totally off, like I was pale and flushed with embarrassment all at once.

"Your…cycle? Cause I could go wake up your mother—"

"NO!" I yelled, my face totally red now. I spun around and ran back into my bedroom, turning around and throwing the door shut behind me, not giving him any leeway to get in another word to see if my face truly can get any redder.

I went over to my bed, which was soft but lumpy because of the broken springs, and fell back into it, staring at the ceiling. For several moments, all I could hear was the rain dripping onto the windows; it was tranquil. Though it hardly begun to balance out the shock of the video and my dad's cluelessness, it was nice.

The door opened softly, and I looked over to see my father stick his head in. "It's okay, your mother gets very moody too."

As he sucked his head back out, shutting the door behind him, I winced. Although he was my father, and I loved him dearly, he was so utterly clueless. And he wasn't just clueless as to keeping private things _private_, he was probably clueless about my mother, too. Whatever her past was, whatever that little box contained.

I thought about going back to sleep, not really knowing what to do. I was sort of trapped in my room, since I was _sick_. Because of a _girl thing_. Smart! I heaved a sigh, spreading out my arms so I was lying spread-eagle across the same sheets I had drooled on as an infant.

I thought about it for longer. How old was my dad? How much older than my mom, though? They were…the same age, more or less. So he was alive – he was her age – when she was selected. So he was there in the crowd. Unless they had something else kept in store, like how my dad used to not live in 12 or something. I doubted that, though.

So he was just, like, a crazed fan? Of my mom, winner of the Hunger Games? And they…like, hooked up?

I mean, I guess that would scar you. Going out and being forced to, like murder people. Which would explain her mental nonstability, if you could in fact call it that. Or was it unstability? Anti-stability? No, that for sure wasn't it.

But still…I lived in the house with a murderer.

My mother – the woman who gave birth to me – has killed people. With…knives? Spears? Her own…bare…hands…?

No, probably none of the above. Her bow and arrow were her main weapons when she had taught me how to hunt. And she was a great shot with it, too.

But a tribute? The winning tribute of the Hunger Games?

I was done thinking about this. I rolled onto my side, and looked down the edge of my bed. The stained, no-longer-white covers hung over the edge, lying purposelessly on the ground. I saw, poking out from under the sheet, a small gold chain. I reached a hand down and tugged on it.

Almost hesitantly, more of the chain slipped from under the covers, and then a gold disc dragged out behind it. I gripped it by the chain and lifted it, holding it in the gray light that seeped in through the windows.

The pocket watch. I sighed, then grinned. I wasn't sure when my mom had put it in my possession, but she had given it to me. It was why I had looked under the cabinet.

I should have looked under the bed.

I observed the design on the front, a diamond jabberjay held stationary on the gold surface, incrusted with silver, the gold patterned and ridged. My thumb found the small knob to open it, and I flipped it up, the top surface popping up and bringing to light a small clock.

The backing was light gold-tan, and the times were printed in roman numerals. The hands were in almost opposite directions: it was 4:60ish. Almost 5. I couldn't tell time that fluently, but I knew about as much.

I wondered what it would be like if I had just checked under the bed first. I wouldn't be in this whole mess, and I wouldn't know. Ignorance is bliss, right? Plus, I wouldn't be locked in my room because I was feeling ill.

But who knows. Maybe there was a whole other universe under my bed, so I ought to keep my head off the ground and put it where it should be; up in the clouds.

Clueless.

That was the only thought left in my head, as scatterbrained as I was, when I laid my head back on the bed, my legs still hanging off, and closed my eyes.

The world fell away as I unflinchingly faced slumber.

**This is sort of my holiday gift to you guys. Sorry I haven't written in a while, and sorry about this bleh/boring/shortness chapter, but…well, I needed to write what happened immediately after the events of the last chapter. I keep saying this, I probably sound like a broken record: It will get better! Just wait.**

**Thanks to all my reviewers and to all you secret readers who don't review or anything. I love you guys! :D (If that's not too creepy…)**


	4. Paranoia

**D to the I to the S-claimer: I do not, will not, and have not (Owned, will own, own) the Hunger Games trilogy, which this FF DOES happen to contain spoilers for!**

**This is what you've all been waiting for (I know I have!), I'm starting to throw in a bit of action! Do you like analogies? Action : Stories :: Spices : Food**

I needed to overcome this chronic fear of going places without my knife.

Not a fear, more like a fetish. Kind of. I was obsessed with taking my knife every time I set foot outside, or even when I was inside. I might as well just attach it to my hand – walk around with it, sleep with it, eat with it.

I was standing by the crack in the door, watching my dad shuffle around in the kitchen, his fatigue evident in his posture and expression. I didn't want to go back out there – not really, not after what had happened in the kitchen. A light shudder passed through me, and I had to take a deep breath to keep my cheeks from turning hot pink.

But along with my father, outside of my room was my knife. Just a little token that made me feel safe and would help me coin some prey if I did end up finding any.

The animals! Where had I put them? I laughed, seeing their carcasses – the blood dry, eyes staring into the distance – just sitting on the couch. My mom might kill me, but it was dirty anyway. My dad thought I was in here having – girl troubles – which was good and bad.

Good, because he would cover with me on the whole leaving-dead-things-on-the-couch part.

Bad, because I couldn't go out for a walk with my knife because he would get suspicious of me walking while I had cramps.

I sighed, staring at my forlorn knife. Staring at it wouldn't bring it towards me – although that would be pretty darn cool.

I left the door, leaving also hopes of snagging my knife. I began to lay my fingers on the murky surface of the window, to pop it out of its little socket so I could escape, but then I got another thought. I ought to leave a note or something, on the off chance that they come in here or maybe I get lost and they start to wonder (twenty hours later, of course) where their daughter could possibly be.

I was a teenager, but that wouldn't matter to them. I might as well be Jib, my little brother. He was only eight. Almost nine, but still eight. They would wait the same amount of time to check up on him – totally wrong – and they still check up on me, like I'm not responsible to hold my life in my own hands for any longer than it takes to, say, make breakfast.

That was mostly my father. Mom was willing to give us a bit of free roam, go out and do things, but dad kept us on a short leash.

I reached down under my bed and found a scrap of paper. It was dusty, but it would work. With a pencil sitting on my night stand, I scribbled a short message in my big, blocky scrawl.

GONE FOR A WALK

IF I'M NOT BACK IN

What was a good time? I didn't want them, twenty minutes later, to be hunting me down? They probably wouldn't even look in my room, not until it was like sun-down, or maybe lunch. If I didn't come out for lunch, my parents would probably assume I had some sort of terminal disease or something.

I could just say a while. That was sort of… interpretive. It gave me a lot of wiggle room, like I could come back in ten minutes or four hours, or maybe even more. I was thinking about this too much.

A WHILE

What now? If I'm not back in a while, come out and call my name like a lost puppy? I shouldn't have put the "IF," it was giving me a tumor in my brain. No, just a headache. Or maybe it was a tumor, who knows.

THEN I WENT FOR A LONG WALK

There. It left no worry room. It was fool-proof. I nodded, satisfied with my work, and propped it up on the pillow of my old, ragged bed.

I laid my hands on the window lightly and shoved it forward. It flew out with surprising force, landing several feet away. I cursed loudly, then threw my hands over my mouth. I glanced back at the door.

"You sure everything's alright?" my father asked, and I could tell he was right by the door.

Crap! Dang! "Yeah, I'm – uh – changing," I answered, a pretty good response for being on the spot.

"You can just wear your nightgown, if you're having your – I mean, you're feeling unwell," he said.

Come on! He just had to make _everything_ difficult by caring so darn much! "No, not – like changing – I mean, I'm –"

"Oh. I understand. Okay, hon, just if everything's okay. "

Understand what? What did he understand? Suddenly, I groaned. He thought I was changing my, er, feminine products, didn't he? Was he just obsessed with embarrassing me as much as he could today? My face felt hot, and I heard him walk away from the door.

I put a hand on the edge of the window – or, where it should have been – and kicked my feet through it, walking over and picking up the window so I could slide it back into place. It took a while, since it seemed determined to go in crooked, but I prevailed eventually. It slipped into its rightful spot, and I began my walk, hands in my pockets.

The rain was cleansing. It wasn't quite a pour, but it was closer to that than a drizzle. It washed away an oncoming headachy feeling, and a thick sort of mush that came with my uncalled-for doze in my room.

I didn't really want to think about anything, just go out and do something. Get my mind off things in a harmless way – that won't require a knife. I felt sort of empty or vulnerable knowing I didn't have it, but what could happen while I was just simply walking around the streets of harmless Town 12?

_Harmless_, I thought, snorting to myself. I'm sure you could find some pretty good 'harmlessness' if you looked in some pretty low places.

I caught a glimpse of the wet square in the middle of Town 12 between streets. It was scantily decorated for the mild, little-celebrated day for remembrance of when District 12 fell to ash. No one really made a big deal about it – maybe have walks in remembrance of the lives lost, but nothing more. What would you do, go and tell all your friends you're having a party because on this day so many years ago, the people in this town were burnt alive? Bring snacks and drinks? It just didn't work.

But it was pretty odd to think about. Even though it was an obscure holiday, some places closed down for it – possibly because they had relatives (Or would you call them ancestors?) who died on that day.

I turned around a corner and the square closed out of sight. I felt around in my pocket for a loose piece of change, and found a single coin and a large piece of lint.

The piece of lint would probably buy more than the coin.

I sighed, shoving it back in my pocket and leaving my hand there.

I was getting completely soaked, my hair wet and my clothes sagging with the moisture of the rain in them. I was shivering lightly; but otherwise, I lived in the phoenix, so I was used to it. The gloomy weather was just a part of the package when you lived here.

I suddenly heard footsteps, above the rain.

_Who's out now? Anyone out now is completely insane._

Example one most likely being me.

I turned around, and caught a glimpse of a tall person in a black hooded jacket with dark denim jeans on. One of his hands was in his pocket, and the other was hanging by his side, curled into a fist. His head was tilted down, so shadows engulfed his face, and I couldn't make out his features.

He looked like a classic textbook creeper, to me. And best of all, he was following me.

I turned around a corner, and I would have run, but – it just seemed to paranoid and crazy, to be honest. So what? A walker whose favorite color was black was out walking. Maybe he was wearing black to mourn a loved one he lost a long time ago, in the revolution. On this day. Something about his gait made me think he was a young person, maybe older than me, but still.

I probably wouldn't have turned around that corner, I realized, if it weren't for this guy. He hadn't come around yet, though, so maybe I was just insane. I sort of let a breath out I hadn't realized I had been holding, but then I saw him. He was walking faster, now.

I started walking faster, too. Wouldn't you?

I went around another corner, and spotted my favorite dark and desolate alleyway. I took a quick look over my shoulder and then broke off, running for it.

I ducked into it, poking my head out to see what he did.

He came around the corner and stopped immediately, looking over at the direction I had gone in.

"See that guy? He's my friend. Don't run from him," a voice behind me whispered, and grabbed my throat.

I immediately jumped back, screaming, before he slapped a hand onto my mouth. I kicked and flailed, but air was barely trickling into my lungs. I bit his hand as hard as he could, and he swore and lifted his hand, balling it into a fist and punching me in the gut.

I had the bittersweet taste of blood in my mouth, and I felt some run out the corner of my lip. I bent over, and the boy holding me shoved me over, my head smacking into the brick wall.

The other guy came running in and pulled off his hood.

It was Keenan Lot, a boy I knew. I had seen his face before, from school. He was two years older than me. He had a hard face, and he didn't talk much. He blinked, letting on a bit of sympathy in his expression, but not enough. I kicked up a foot and it landed right between his legs, and he grunted, his face crumpling with pain.

He revealed his hand, the one balled into a fist. Inside it was a knife, and he raised it up.

"Hey! We're not killing her," the one choking me said.

"Not yet," Keenan growled, and he slashed the knife across my face, making me feel an immediate hot, sharp pain in my cheek.

I sucked in a breath, but no air came, and I went limp, unconscious.


	5. Dark Premonition

**Disclaimer: By now you know the disclaimer drill, and I can't think of anything witty due to plain laziness. So I'll just tell you to look at this disclaimer, laugh like it was funny, and somehow get the idea that I do not own the Hunger Games.**

**Warning: Spoilers for Hunger Games series, books uno through trio.**

Want to know what's worse than losing consciousness after being beat up on the streets?

Regaining consciousness after being beat up on the streets.

"Ow," were the first words to escape my lips, cracking the shell of dry blood that coated them and ran down the edge of my face.

My head was pulsating with a mild headache, making me feel dizzy and all-around unstable. My neck hurt, probably lined with bruises; the best kind, purple-green fresh-off-the-farm-o'-pain bruises. My head hurt, like I had scraped it a little and hit it a lot. My cheek stung intensely from being cut, and made me clench my teeth. The kicker was the stomach part; that was the worst. After being punched in the gut by a guy, you really have no chance. I felt like throwing up, but I didn't really have anything in my stomach, thank goodness. The last thing I needed was to regain consciousness and barf and probably look like a total idiot.

It was then that I remembered the tapes from the morning, and me seeing my mother volunteer for the Hunger Games. Learning that she had lied to me about something for all her life. I thought of going out on my walk, leaving my knife at home because I had no sense of what was going to happen on the duration of it.

I lifted up my head, and then raised a hand to my face to feel my cut. When the smoke of being awake cleared, I figured out where I was. Not really, I didn't recognize it. But at least I had some sort of grip on reality; that was pretty awesome.

Touching my cut hurt; it didn't quite register right away, but when it did, I pulled my hand away like I had touched a hot stove.

Everything around me was just sort of hazy. I could tell that I was in the back of something like a truck. Which seemed weird. Sometimes, these huge semis came to the phoenix to deliver supplies. It was a yearly thing. This was an empty storage unit from the back of a semi.

It took a while for me to grasp that – God, it was moving! And, 2+2=4, I was in the back of a moving truck.

My feet were taped together, as well as my hands. With an excessive amount of tape, too – it seemed like something out of a really corny book or something, and I realized I would probably be chained up, if they could afford chains.

But it wasn't just me, there were lots of other kids. Some of them younger – the youngest looking ten-ish – and some older – like, sixteen, maybe – in comparison to me. They all looked about as cruddy as I did – more or less. One had his leg twisted wrong, like it was broken. One kid looked like she hadn't even been touched, accept for a split lip. It didn't look like there was any sort of pattern in the kids here – a few were buff, and some were snotty little short kids, and some were really tall, and some were black, and some were rich-looking – the list went on.

But there were a few similarities. Or maybe just coincidences. There were about equal girls and boys. And, everyone – except me – was unconscious. Passed out, could have mistaken them for dead if you couldn't see the scarcely visible rise and fall of their chest cavities.

I got up, slowly to balance on my taped-together legs, and as I did another wave of pain washed over me, slow and drawn out. It made me lean on the side wall for support, my head throbbing, and I slid down the side of it, falling onto the ground.

"Hello?" I spoke in a low voice, looking around for a response but getting none.

"Shut up," came a whispered reply.

Shut up? Surprisingly, I didn't expect that. When you call out in a van full of hormonal mugging victims, you expect a response nicer than shut up. "_You_ shut up, I can talk if I want to, you piece of—"

"No. Shish." came the same voice, hoarse and quick, and I looked around and saw a boy, who looked about fifteen. I could see his eyes, which were bloodshot, his irises dark, so it looked like his eyes had no pupils. He had short black hair which had lines of dry blood shooting out of it, from a head wound. One of his eyes was swollen shut and lined with one of those ripe, colorful bruises. He was slightly muscular, but not much more than average. His face was tan, and he had barely perceptible black hairs above his lips, like a baby moustache.

"Don't talk," he whispered. "It's better if they think you're unconscious."

I was about to ask why, but then decided I was already queasy enough and new things to freak out about might cause me to go over the edge.

There was the short pause, where we both observed each other for a moment that should have been more awkward than it was. Surprisingly, it wasn't at all uncomfortable. I was only half-focused on him anyway, the other part of me thinking of "No," he said. Something about him was intriguing, but I didn't know quite what.

I figured I could have continued the conversation, but didn't pursue the opportunity. It almost seemed like I had seen him from somewhere, or something. His face, his tough features. I was probably crazy, since it was just some random guy. It was just one of those faces, I guessed.

I let my head drop to the ground, and my cheek stung in the biting kind of pain that made me dig my nails into my palms and grit my teeth, since that was my only defense against it.

I wondered how long I had been in here. I figured I was out for…say…an hour? Half hour? Hour and a half? I knew basically nothing.

At that point, the truck stopped. Literally, just as I was wondering when it would stop. It held there for a moment, and I saw a few heads poke up. Strange, how many of them had caught on and feigned unconsciousness, as if they were told to.

I got a sense of foreboding, deep inside. Yes, I got a similar feeling when I saw a bunch of young people all bound up and unconscious, but this was something of an even worse feeling. Like this was something a lot worse than I had anticipated, and I suddenly felt a gripping fear of what would happen when they opened the back of the truck.

I watched as the back doors rolled upward and revealed the outside, the light flooding in impeded by a dark figure. I saw the light outline on his features a cold smile, and glinting dark eyes.

"Welcome to the seventy-sixth games, tributes."

**I know, I know, I hadn't written in forever. This is my saying that I DIDN'T abandon it…for long. Well, whatever, happy summer going into school, hope you had more fun than I did! Jk, jk—anyways, as a present for me giving you a chapter, tell me in the comments a question you would like answered or something you would like to see in this ff. Anyways, hope you enjoyed it, and sorry if my writing style's changed, it's been a while!**


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